To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry

In To Sound Like Yourself, poet W. D. Snodgrass goes after that singular quality, the poet's individual voice, that separates the best poetry from the merely technical and pedantic. Beginning with an essay on the poetic impulse, Snodgrass discusses natural rhythms, such as in the owl's call, the rocking of the cradle, and how they correspond to common verse metrics. Later, in discussions of such poems as Sir Thomas Wyatt's "They Flee from Me," and in a frank and thorough discussion of Walt Whitman's life and art, Snodgrass lauds the individuating process that occurs when a poet's own technique bursts the boundaries of form. In his final essay in the volume, "Meter, Music, Meaning," he points out how stresses and rhythms not only give us the music of poetry, but also help deliver a poem's meaning. To Sound Like Yourself is essential reading for poets and students of poetry. Book jacket.